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Schools Close, but Children Are Out and About

By Sewell Chan May 21, 2009 8:47 amMay 21, 2009 8:47 am

With swine flu still shuttering schools and more than 15,000 students granted an unexpected week off, the students are scattering across Queens like new visitors to a planet called Weekday, somewhere between a snow day and a full summer vacation. Students have popped up among adults in stores, parks and libraries, places they are often forbidden to visit unsupervised.

At libraries in Queens, staff members normally accustomed to questioning truants have relaxed their rules to accommodate a sudden influx of children.

But the newfound freedom was accompanied by some fear, as both students and parents worried about the flu’s continuing to spread.

Thirty public and private schools have closed in the last week, including three more Queens public schools and a South Bronx charter high school on Wednesday, because of unusually high level of “influenza-like illness.”

City officials said that the densely packed schools had turned into incubators of disease, and they expressed hope that their closings would stop the spread of germs. Most schools remained open, however, including many with higher than normal absentee rates, raising the prospect of thousands more children circulating in public during the day.

Related article in The Times: The news bears out what doctors have noticed: the new flu infects more young people than do seasonal flus.

The New York Post cites Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg suggesting that more worrywarts than swine flu victims are flooding hospital emergency rooms. “While there are an abnormal number of people going to the hospital who are worried,” he said, “virtually none, a very tiny percentage of them, have any symptoms whatsoever.” (See related article in The Daily News.)

The Daily News reports on the funeral for Mitchell Wiener, the assistant principal who died of swine flu. One by one, the three sons and wife of a Queens educator who died from swine flu stood before hundreds of mourners on Wednesday and remembered him as the soul of both his family and his school. “People shouldn’t feel bad that we lost our father,” said Mr. Wiener’s son Farrell, 18. “We had the greatest father in the world.”

The Bloomberg campaign has lined up a group of deep-pocketed Democrats to endorse him in his bid for a third term, The Post has learned. Democrats for Bloomberg could be disastrous for the mayoral hopeful William C. Thompson Jr., the Democratic city comptroller whose war chest needs a big-bucks boost. [New York Post]

A former Queens Republican councilman is in line to be appointed by Mayor Bloomberg as a $172,311 commissioner at the Housing Authority — considered a prime patronage post — just weeks after the county’s G.O.P. endorsed the mayor’s re-election bid, The Post has learned. Sources said that Anthony Como, ousted from his Council seat last year by Elizabeth Crowley, a Democrat, is the leading contender to succeed Earl Andrews Jr. as one of the authority’s three commissioners. [New York Post]

The Independent Budget Office said that the city faces a $1.1 billion gap in the budget year starting July 1 and $5.6 billion the following year — both $1 billion more than Mayor Bloomberg has projected. [New York Post]

The prosecution and the defense sought leniency for Brian M. McLaughlin, the former president of the nation’s largest municipal labor council, citing his cooperation with the government. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison on racketeering charges. [NYT] (Also see City Room and The New York Post.)

Lawyers for Anthony D. Marshall questioned his son, Philip, about the millions of dollars he stands to receive if he is appointed an administrator of her estate. [NYT]

The mother of Imette St. Guillen left a Brooklyn courtroom in tears Wednesday because she could not bear to hear grim testimony about her daughter’s body. A medical examiner’s office criminologist, Taylor Dickerson, had been telling the jury deciding the fate of Darryl Littlejohn, the man accused of killing Ms. St. Guillen, about bloodstains found on a quilt in which her naked body had been wrapped before being dumped in Brooklyn. [New York Post]

The retired New York City police sergeant charged with robbing a bank because of heavy debts recently did extensive work on his house and pool — less than two years after forking over fistfuls of cash to his former wife, sources and neighbors said. [New York Post]

Some of the world’s richest people — including Mayor Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Warren E. Buffett, George Soros and Oprah Winfrey — gathered this month to discuss charitable giving. [NYT] (Also see City Room.)

Technical Garment USA, a workshop on in Manhattan, was raided by state labor investigators last month. The owner, Andreas Ortiz, denied the state’s charge that it is a sweatshop. [NYT]

A former transportation authority police chief is running for sheriff of Putnam County in a crowded field of law enforcement veterans. The former chief, Kevin McConville of Cold Spring, rose through the ranks of the transportation authority’s Police Department before retiring as chief after a new administration took control of the authority in 2007. [Daily News]

Schools

Nearly half of the city’s public schools students are in overcrowded schools, temporary trailers or annexes in different locations, according to a new report. Worst among these are 20 schools whose enrollment was more than 50 percent above their building’s limit in 2006-7, according to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a public policy group. [New York Post]

Gov. David A. Paterson has signed legislation to require New York City schools to notify parents by e-mail, text messages or phone calls when there is a school emergency. Scheduled to take effect in January, the measure requires an alert system at each city public school, subject to regulations by the chancellor. Parents, staff members and community members can choose whether to sign up. [New York Post]

The City Department of Education has wrongfully stripped parents of power, Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. said, blasting the agency in a report released Wednesday. As Albany weighs changes to mayoral control to allow for more parental input, Mr. Thompson charged that the agency violated 10 provisions of the current law. [Daily News]

People & Neighborhoods

A dismissal was recommended for a lawsuit brought by Andrew Giuliani, who claimed that Duke University allowed him to be unfairly ousted from the university’s golf team. [NYT]

Peter Applebome’s Our Towns column: An Army plane apparently went down in the rain forest on the way to Brazil in 1944. No wreckage was ever found, but one man still searches for answers. [NYT]

Forget the French Riviera. With the lingering recession, hundreds of thousands of people will head for the “Bronx Riviera” instead, as Orchard Beach and other city beaches officially open this Memorial Day weekend. [Daily News]

Over the holiday weekend, the city’s parks and waterfront hangouts are expected to be packed with New Yorkers making the most of anticipated sunshine and an extra day off. [Daily News]

For the first time in almost two decades, the historic Forest Park Carousel will be shuttered on Memorial Day weekend.The unofficial start of summer has customarily also served as opening day for the 49 hand-carved horses, lions, tigers, deer and chariots. [Daily News]

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